Fodor's may use your e-mail address to send you relevant information on site updates, account changes, and offers. For more information about your privacy and protection, please review our full Privacy Policy.

Need help from anyone who's been to Grenada, please!

We are planning our first family trip to the Caribbean, and are considering grenada, as it seems to have a good combination of beaches, rainforests, and genuine atmosphere. We will be travelling in December 2012 and will be going with two adults a 17-year-old girl and a 20-year old girl. We live in Pennsylvania and are trying to get away from the cold for Christmas but we do have a limited budget. We would love some advice!

I have a few questions:

1. About how much would a december flight (for 2012) cost from Newark/NYC and about how long would it take?

2. How safe is Grenada? can you walk around safely in the forests without a guide?

3. Which beach of Grenada has the most clear, turquoise water? This will be our first caribbean trip and we don't want to come all that way only to find water that is not all that different from the water in the North Atlantic (Jersey shore, etc.)

4. How often do cruise ships visit Grenada in december? Do the beaches ever become overrun with cruise ship passengers?

We would also love any additional advice on Grenada and/or other similar islands.

Grenada is certainly a fine choice. My wife and I are going to Grenada next February for our fourth time. We have been to many Caribbean islands and would rank Grenada our number 1 winter desitnation.

Our flight from Toronto usually takes 5 to 5.5 hours.

Yes Grenada is quite safe. We have only ever had one unpleasant experience/encounter while staying there and that was 7 years ago. I am not sure I would venture off into the rainforest without a guide not so much for security reasons but more because I wouldn't want to get lost. I don't recall ever hearing about muggins or such occuring during hikes.

The more well known beach is Grande Anse (the area we always stay in). The water is beautiful, the sand more brown than white and not crowded like you'd find at Negril, Jamaica or Orient Beach, St. Martin. Close by is Mourne Rouge beach. This is a lovely quite little beach with very few people and nice calm water. There are other nice beaches too but I've spent any time there so really can't comment.

Cruise ships arrive in St. George's maybe 3 times a week. The ships offer organized tours to Grande Anse beach. Fortunately for us the drop them off at the opposite end of the beach from where we hunker down so we never are impacted by the (if any) influx.

When planning my first trip to Grenada I refered extensively the following website. There are many knowledgable contributors that can assist you with your planning.

You also might like to consider Aruba or Curacao. Both are quite nice and safe. Aruba has become quite developed since I was there in 93 but people still flock there. I was on Curacao in 2006 and liked it alot. It has more of the Dutch European feel to it than Aruba.

I have prepared trip reports on both Grenada and Curacao. Just click on my name.

I'd say that a good price for airfare that time of year would be $650/person, but it very likely will be more. Last time I traveled from the east coast it was more like $800/person. My husband and I have visited Grenada four times, and it's the only island I've ever traveled to solo. I think it's very safe and very wonderful.

We always rented our cars from Y&R rentals, who used to offer a small discount for rentals booked online. We've always rented from www.spiceislevillas.com, and we've booked into both Turtleback Villa and Tradewinds Villa. Both were excellent value for the price--with your group, I'd encourage you to rent a villa, too.

Please let me know if you have further questions I can help you with. My trip reports on Grenada (with photos) are located in my profile if you're interested)

thanks so much! this has been a big help. it's too bad flights are so expensive... are there any package deals available that would make it more affordable? (I'm thinking like the deals in the back of the New York Times travel section)

I saw this old thread, and thought I would add, with respect to safety, that Grenada may be no more dangerous than other places, but it does suffer crime. Be very careful about going out at night. I know someone who was mugged there last weekend, during a 10-minute walk from restaurant to hotel.